SirionLabs raises $12.25M to help big firms get smarter with their suppliers

SirionLabs, an India-headquartered company that uses tech to help companies manage their contracts and relationships with suppliers, has completed a $12.25 million Series B round. The round, which takes SirionLabs to $16 million raised, was led by Sequoia India with participation from QualGro ASEAN Fund and Canopy Ventures.

The Gurugram-based startup typically works with large multinational companies to help them manage relationships with their suppliers. Its platform integrates with in-house systems to analyze supplier contracts to help with auditing, tracking KPIs and goals, and more. Some of its most recognizable clients include BP, Western Union and Vodafone, while it works with top consulting firms, too.

Ajay Agrawal, SirionLabs’ CEO, told me over the phone that large corporations are beginning to look to specialized services to help manage their outsourcing, but it is still a nascent space.

“We’re moving from a world that consumes goods and commodities to a world that consumes services,” he said in an interview. “Traditional procurement technology doesn’t cut the ice, managing the vendor after signature is the order of the day.”

Agrawal said he estimates that more than $1.1 trillion is spent annually on outsourcing, yet most of that is unmonitored and not audited acutely.

Big companies typically wait for the supplier to submit the invoice, and along with the invoice they provide backup data and assertions that they have complied with the terms agreed. He sees that some companies have started to independently audit and are in “the vanguard of breaking free but overwhelmed by sheer volume of data to really intelligently.”

That’s where SirionLabs wants to make a meaningful difference with its services, which it charges companies to use via a per seat model.

“What you want to know as a buyer or a supplier around a complex contract is what the obligations and deliverables embedded in a contract are. [To] get that list with as little manual intervention is really the goal… [it’s] ongoing process, today we have automated it to around mid-50 percent of the manual labor,” Agrawal explained.

The aim is really increased transparency, which is why — Agrawal claimed — service providers are keen to embrace platforms like this so that they can clearly show their customers that they have hit their mark. Indeed, the SirionLabs has since developed a ‘revenue assurance’ product that does just that.

The majority of SirionLabs’ 150 staff are based in India, but it has sales teams across the U.S., Europe (London) and Singapore. With this new capital, Agrawal said that SirionLabs will beef up its sales team and work on R&D and product development. With regards to hiring, he said that the company is looking for talent based in Silicon Valley who are open to relocating back to India.

On a related note: Sanish Mondkar, who is a former executive vice president and chief product officer at SAP, has joined SirionLabs’ Board of Directors. Mondkar helped build products for Ariba, the company which SAP acquired for $4.3 billion in 2012, and SirionLabs said he will “work closely” with its product and engineering teams.